Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Why I should not be called a NIMBY

For those of you who do not know me my name is Rob Shairp. Shairp is an uncommon Scottish surname ehh, I am from a wee island off the West coast of Scotland with a population of about 200 people. Spent 20 years of my life in Australia and have Aussie citizenship before myself and my wife decided to emigrate to Ireland "as it was closer to home" Galway had an airport back then with a quick flight to Inverness where my wife hails from.

Anyway on to the topic of NIMBY ism, I got involved with researching industrial wind turbines and all aspects of their existence when I bought a home in Connemara. I suppose my initial motivation was NIMBYism I had spent all our savings on buying a house and doing it up so the last thing I wanted was to lose money if a industrial wind turbine complex was built close by. The Real Estate agent I bought through, when I asked for a valuation if the turbines were built told me I could lose up to 20% of the houses value due to the view being such a huge part of the attraction of the property. We look over the Costello river and bog to the Connemara hills and there is not another house in sight. No lights, no noise top views, lovely wild forest garden full of wildlife I was entranced. So I started a website and face book page and joined with some of my neighbors http://www.connemaraagainstwindfarms.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/ConnemaraAgainstWindfarms?ref_type=bookmark

The Developer, Gaoi an Iarthar (Enerco Energy Ltd) had an information day in a local hall with lots of people in suits walking around telling everyone how lucky they were. There were photos of how the turbines would look in the distance promises of monies to be paid to local charities and the like. The first thing I noticed being an avid photographer was the shots were all taken with wide angle lenses which diminishes height in objects in the background, I thought that's a bit rude the turbines are over 140 meters tall and yet they have been made to look like the height of telegraph poles. Since then there have been laws made to stop developers using photo montages that misrepresent reality. The development has never gone to planning since and that was over two years ago now, everything has calmed down no more meetings and folks here uninterested, apart from myself as I started doing some research.

This is where I feel I can no longer be called a NIMBY ( Not in my back yard) I do not want to see another industrial wind turbine planted ANYWHERE in anyone's back yard, WHY? well

They do not work. The whole purpose of wind turbines was to lower CO2 emissions and help save the Earth by altering Global warming. Ireland saved only 2.6% of its emissions last year which cost huge amounts of money. And that 2.6% does not factor in CO2 produced by diesel generators used to turn the blades when the wind is too low or the CO2 emitted by the manufacture process or transportation of the mills to the destinations.

They are not proven to be safe. More and more people all over the world are reporting medical effects from low frequency noise emitted from the turbines mostly due to sleep disturbance, also effects are being seen on animals living close to them.

House prices near turbines can drop by half their values more in some cases, I know one man whos house is worth 80 % less than it was before the development came along.

All the countries that have embraced wind farming have not managed to close a single conventional power station as they are needed to back up the turbines when they are either not turning due to no wind or shut down due to too much wind. The conventional power stations ramping up and down, produce more CO2 than they would running at max capacity cutting CO2 emissions reduction for the country even further.

Trees are being cut down replaced with turbines, the last thing we should be doing is cutting down more trees.

Turbines have large magnets inside and the mining of the rare earth minerals and production of magnets for them has seen a thousand fold increase and is causing huge environmental damage.

Ireland produces enough electricity already to satisfy demand in this country, increasing the amount of wind power in the equation means a larger network of electricity lines to transport it and more back up generation.

The plan to export electricity to the UK is flawed, there was no CBA done before vast amounts of money were ploughed into it. The plan did not go to public consultation before being launched which is illegal according to Aarthus and the International conventions Ireland has signed up to obey.

The whole system of planning has been corrupted by big wind and politicians with vested interest in promoting wind energy.

The Wind energy scam is just a massive, easy way to take money from those who cant afford it and transfer it to greedy landowners, developers and multi national companies. They lie, cheat and ruin countrysides all for money, money, money.